It's such a waste of money to artificially maintain a cultural aspect. The concept of bilingual is becoming more and more outdated in Wales. Language is a tool. I don't mind the Welsh taxpayer being responsible for keeping Welsh alive, however. But a language with less than half a million speakers won't get you anywhere.

(Original post by roseroserose.)
I loved learning Welsh, and I'm a Southerner.

So make it an option, rather than a compulsory subject. Those who want to learn it can, in the same way one would learn any other language. It is not vital for communication, and so should not be forced on people who don't want to learn it.

(Original post by chrisawhitmore)So make it an option, rather than a compulsory subject. Those who want to learn it can, in the same way one would learn any other language. It is not vital for communication, and so should not be forced on people who don't want to learn it.

I would be so annoyed if I was Welsh and was forced to learn the language growing up

PURELY BECAUSE it is just about the most useless language out there. Who speaks Welsh? Just Welsh people. What do (just about) all Welsh people also speak? English. English also facilitates communication in maaany other countries.

If you're going to force someone to learn a language, make it something more internationally spoken like Spanish or French D: Welsh might as well be optional in my opinion, although if it is made optional I expect very few people will bother to take it up and it's a big cultural thing for many. Still, bit of a burden for those that don't want to learn it.

I'm half-Welsh, and there is a lot of petty nationalist sentiment in the country. People like Maureen Boyardy are ignorant, small-minded little people, obsessed with a romanticised myth of their country. David Davies was absolutely right in his BNP comment. If an English person suggests that everyone should speak English, they get called a fascist. It's exactly the same thing here. Hell, last time I was visiting family in Wales (a few months ago) there was a campaign by the one of newspapers to get everyone to vote for a particular act in some ****ty talent show just because they spoke Welsh, and for not other reason. There are so many people in Wales who subscribe to a Braveheart vision of history, and who are nothing more than petty, Welsh 'little-Englanders'. Fools, the lot of them.

That woman sounds mental. However, I don't see the problem in teaching Welsh or at least giving children the option to learn Welsh. I think it's sad for a language to die but it is probably too late to save it. I wish I had been taught some Irish at school.

The welsh student is forced to take timetabled time to study a subject he doesn't like/isn't good at and hence gets an E.
The English student is allowed to choose his 10th subject he enjoys/is good at and hence gets an A*.
Both students 1 and 2 otherwise study the same subjects.

I appreciate that the Welsh want to retain their language and culture, and its a difficult call. I'm English but go to a Welsh university, and I was surprised at the amount of Welsh friends I made who neither speak Welsh, nor really care about it being kept in terms of teaching it to children, etc. Obviously, there are those who speak Welsh a lot, live in Welsh halls, request Welsh lecture slides and stuff, but they are a surprisingly small minority (to me, at least). So much money is spent on Welsh -> English translations and vice versa which just seems stupid since basically everyone who speaks Welsh also speaks English perfectly too... also, having exams introduced in Welsh and English is just crazy when everyone in the room speaks English, and the vast majority have no knowledge of the Welsh language.

I don't think it's as big an issue as people are making out. It's not a particularly difficult language to learn as we're taught the main sentence patterns in Primary school and you generally say what you see, only short course is compulsory (I think?) and I literally had one lesson a week on it, where exams were split over 2 years.

I wouldn't complain if it was made non compulsory, but that won't happen until the WAG and public sector jobs stop preferring bilingual over non-bilingual. e.g. all my English teachers are being put on Welsh speaking courses

Quite the comical argument you've found. Then again whenever David Davies decides to rear his head things usually get pretty heated at a rate of knots.

Ultimately, however hysterical Maureen Boyardy may come across in the clip, I believe she is absolutely in the right. David Davies suggesting that she go join the BNP because she shares the aspiration (along with many other people in this country) that all school children should at least be acquainted with the language, or that if you hold such a view you "want to blame all the world's problems on everyone from England" is absolutely shameful and doesn't engage with the argument. It's almost Godwin's Law for Welsh radio.

It's such a waste of money to artificially maintain a cultural aspect. The concept of bilingual is becoming more and more outdated in Wales. Language is a tool. I don't mind the Welsh taxpayer being responsible for keeping Welsh alive, however. But a language with less than half a million speakers won't get you anywhere.

At least in Scotland they're not being as nationalistically primal.

In saying that bilingualism is becoming "more and more outdated" here you reveal considerable ignorance of Wales and the language. Bilingualism has hardly been more relevant at any other period in history; save perhaps during the Roman Occupation. Welsh is more visible now than it has ever been; Welsh language literature is flourishing, the language is taught (to varying degrees) in all of the country's schools, is present on every street corner, and is heard now in all parts of the country (yes, even in darkest Monmouthshire). The article you quote is misleading; the headline states that "Welsh is dying out", yet in the short body of text that follows, the article clarifies that 5,200 Welsh speakers move away from Wales every year. If Wales is losing 3,000 speakers every year, then by the WLB's own figures, this suggests a net increase of 2,200 Welsh speakers if we don't constrain ourselves by geography. I'm not saying that Welsh doesn't face serious challenges in the future. It does. However, the greatest problem the language faces is remaining a community language in its traditional heartlands - because it is here the true deficit in Welsh speakers is found. Out-migration from these areas in the face of a stagnant economy is the biggest cause of trepidation over the future of Welsh, but it is pretty clear that Welsh HAS got a future. It is the shape of that future which is in doubt.

And for the record, the language does have more than half a million speakers.

I'm half-Welsh, and there is a lot of petty nationalist sentiment in the country. People like Maureen Boyardy are ignorant, small-minded little people, obsessed with a romanticised myth of their country.

What on Earth is ignorant and small-minded about learning a language?

(Original post by geetar)
David Davies was absolutely right in his BNP comment. If an English person suggests that everyone should speak English, they get called a fascist. It's exactly the same thing here.

(Original post by geetar)
here are so many people in Wales who subscribe to a Braveheart vision of history, and who are nothing more than petty, Welsh 'little-Englanders'. Fools, the lot of them.

Tell me, what is this "Braveheart vision of history", and why is it invalid? Why is supporting the teaching of a language in schools petty? Why are you so opposed to educating children about a language?

Am not welsh but i wouldn't mind learning the language sound quite nice. I can understand why they would want to keep their language and culture because its part of their identity and history. However some aspects on forcing students to take welsh when they don't want to,which results to obtaining poor grades & am talking from experience.

I've no idea what this is all about before the argument started but the woman sounds awful. It was funny toward the end of the clip where he was talking and she was ranting away in the background and they'd lowered her volume just so he could speak.

She's certainly not representative of many welsh people, while patriotism is strong here that kind of venomous nationalism is relatively rare

To all the people saying Welsh is useless because only the Welsh speak it, what about other countries in Europe? For example, Latvia. Only Latvians speak Latvian, nobody had a go at them for defending their language against Russian.

I do, however, agree with David Davies that she should have made an effort to learn Welsh. It's too late now, but if she feels so passionately about it she should have done it when she was younger. I have friends in Ireland that say they should be speaking Irish as a mother tongue, yet make no effort to speak it.